Starter’s orders…

Speculation rife that the election will be announced on Monday, allowing the Labour conference to be held in advance of the campaign, and a new RedC is out which will give hope to the smaller coalition partner. The poll is in tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post, and is reported to be accompanied by an 8-page pull out election special, so I suspect it will boost circulation, not just in Mullingar.

Up to 10%, a steady, rather than spectacular, increase is evidenced by the polls, and there will be hopes among delegates this weekend that this trend for Labour will continue. Values can go up as well as down, however, and anyone who gets carried away by these results may yet be disappointed. But clearly it is succour to candidates who, 3 months ago, would have seen their chances as between slim and none. On these figures, there are over 20 seats where they are in with a shout, and local factors will push more into contention (of course, other local factors will push others out…sings and roundabouts and all that..)

FF, continue to flop, and one wonders how they will manage this, given their ‘brand’ is one of a party interested in Govt, but only if the biggest party. SF and AAAPBP at least can sell themselves as an opposition who will shout loudest, Greens SocDems & Renua as smaller ‘watchdogs’ in a broader Govt, but what are FF for if they don’t contemplate Govt, with these figures?

FG will be unhappy to be down 1%, given the poll follows a conference, a factor Laour might bear in mind if they assume a further bounce is ‘in the bag’. Other than that, Greens at 3% will be happy, AAAPBP at 3% and SocDems at 2% will continue to be frustrated, and Renua at 1% will shift nervously.

Anyway, dinner cooking so figures/IPR seat projections as follows;

FG

29%

56

FF

17%

29

SF

19%

27

LB

10%

17

GP

3%

2

AAA/PBP

3%

2

SocDems

2%

2

Renua

1%

0

OTH

16%

23

100%

158

Outgoing Govt still well short of a majority, of course, but no other offering coming closer.

They’d not be too far off, but I suspect enough to make it too unstable to be attractive to them. Absolute minimum (assuming they’d want Ceann Comh) would be 79-78 in lobbies (with casting vote in reserve), which means 80 to have a majority of 1, if this outcome came to pass, which means they’d need at least 7 more to have the slenderest of majorities (if they were happy with that).

If the SocDems only returned 2 of their 3 seats, last thing they’d want would be to be supporting a Govt that might only last 6 months – personally I doubt they’ll enter if they get less than 6 seats, and they are way off that territory on current polls. Similarly for Greens, who would I’m sure take the longer view. AAAPBP don’t even arise, they’d never support a Govt of any hue.

A number of the others would be of similar outlook to AAAPBP (mainly ex-ULA) and so that 7 isn’t easy. Of the ones coming through on my spreadsheet, only 10 (maybe 11) are potentials, but I can’t see 70% of them who would be required climbing on board – in reality even if all did, (highly improbable in my view, given the pressures they’d be under locally and threat of a 2nd election soon after) I doubt the Govt would have the capacity to pass a Budget, and every Dail division would be a potential crisis.

So some way off, and I strongly believe that if this was the outcome, it’d be either FG/FF or (possibly more likely now) 2nd GE (possibly after a few months of caretaker Govt).